Enthusiasms and expostulations, by Glenn Kenny

December 08, 2010

Some words with Bruno Dumont and Julie Sokolowski on "Hadewijch"

Julie Sokolowski in Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch.

Hadewijch, the new feature from the...what's the word? "interesting?" "problematic?" depends on who you talk to, I guess, I myself think both or either quite a lot of the time...French director Bruno Dumont, opens theatrically in New York on Christmas Eve, and never let it be said that IFC, the concern responsible for this U.S. engagement, doesn't have a sense of humor. For this film is a story of a young woman of privilege who feels herself consumed by her love of God, and for her troubles in this resepct is kicked out of the convent in which she seems so happy. After which she takes up with some young Muslim jihadists. What ensues largely eschews the oft-graphic content of some of Dumont's prior films, which include L'humanite, Twenty-Nine Palms, and Flandres.I was impressed with the film and impressed with the performance of lead actress Julie Sokolowski, who plays the sort-of title role; her character also goes by her given name, Céline.

As the film approaches its U.S. opening, there has been some debate in various social media as to what actually happens in the picture, and some of this debate has been heated, and some of the heat has been emanating from my own self, as I see the film as being pretty unambiguous with respect to what "actually" happens...in that it, you know, actually shows what happens on the screen, within its frames, and so on. Others feel that events as depicted, or "depicted" in Hadewijch are more open to interpretation, such as it is. If I seem to be dancing around the issue, it's because I want to spare any spoilers from readers who have yet to see the film, which I believe is a noteworthy one and well worth seeing. These questions or matters of interpretation go straight to the heart of what kind of movie Hadewijch is. Or perhaps they go straight to the heart of a statement made by a friend who doesn't share my admiration for the director's work, that is, "I don't think he knows how to make a movie."

As for the interview that runs below, it could be said to constitute one long spoiler in and of itself, in a sense, particularly so after the jump, and so I want to emphasize that I am offering it here, earlier than I might have, as a kind of "service" to readers who've already seen the film and want to get back on Twitter and get into a virtual screaming match with people who think...well, never mind. What the reader who hasn't seen the picture yet might want to do is bookmark this and come back later if he or she is interested.

In the interest of not looking like I'm cheating or anything, I reproduce the interview straight from the transcript (complete with occasional "[unclear]"s), my long-winded questions included. The interview was conducted in early October of 2009 in New York City.

Q: I want to talk about the impetus for this particular film. Flandres, I think, can be looked at as a film about war and about love. And this can be looked at as a film about love and war, or a certain form of war, or the war within the heart, the war without. And I wonder if there was a specific bridge between your conception of Flandres and your conception of this film, or if they're totally discrete objects.

BD: (through interpreter) Just the fact of being inside someone who's so passionate and how that can then go over and veer off into something that's totally different, the opposite of love. And that's very disturbing for me and that's what I want to explore. When does the door open? That fact is very disturbing metaphysically.

Q: Because the film itself is in some respects open to interpretation in that its depiction of an active jihad, or terrorism is somewhat detached, somewhat dispassionate and is not something that the film seems to overtly condemn, it merely, the way you showed it, merely hits. It's almost like a map through process: this happens, this happens, this happens and then this happens. Were you trying to keep the film in a kind of detached position?

Bruno Dumont: (through interpreter) Yes, you're absolutely right. There's an association, one association into another, and into another. And then Hadewijch placed the bomb, which is the entire—entirely the opposite of what—who she is, what she does at the very beginning of the film. It's presented in a manner that's clinical, that's mechanical, and which is totally incredible. But that isn't the end of the film. That's merely a very brief instant in the film. The end of the film is what happens after the explosion. And while everything at that moment is a moment of incredible despair and alienation, the ending of the film isn't.

Q: Yes. Well, there are some theories among some of the more excitable critics attending the New York Film Festival that the final scene of the film is actually a flashback, which I don't buy into at all, because first of all, there are several things that tell you it's not. For instance, the very beginning of the film your character's clothing is very binding—

Julie Sokolowski: Um hm.

Q: It's clear that you've returned to the convent after [unclear] with the mother superior. And it's rather mordantly funny in retrospect, the Mother Superior having said to your character, earlier in the film, “Go get experience.” And boy, does your character get experience. And your mode of dress is entirely different, your mode of hair entirely different. So to interpret this scene as a flashback seems to me entirely ridiculous. But I have to inform you that there are some who will. But I wanted to segue to a perhaps more banal but interesting question, not too much about interpretations but about process, which is how you came to be in the film, how Bruno and you met and then what you were doing prior to that and how you came to go on this adventure.

JS: (through interpreter) When I met Bruno I was an 18-year-old girl who had just finished lycee in France. I attended a screening of Flandres in Lille and met Bruno on that occasion. I was an absolutely ordinary girl. I wasn't interested in acting, I was more drawn if at all to cinema perhaps in directing. But I was planning to go to New York City for a year, spend a year there, working as an au pair girl, which is what I did. And I think that's pretty much—wraps it up.

Q: It's interesting, this is, if I'm not mistaken, the first feature you've shot in Paris. But watching it and seeing the rock band, the fellow with the accordion, not the most common instrument in the rock bands; except for if it was an American band They Might Be Giants; otherwise, the accordian, usually not a big part of rock. And they're playing not a traditional rock song but they're repeating a motif from a Bach piece that's played earlier in the film. It gave me a sense that you're setting--among other things that you're setting the film almost in an invented kind of Paris or an overt construct. I found the device very interesting. It kind of threw—is it just that you wanted to keep the integrity of the musical motifs involved in the picture consistent but in terms of what they say, verisimilitude, it is an interesting digression.

BD: (through interpreter) I need to manipulate realism. Realism doesn't interest me for a second. What I'm interested in is dealing with the interior of the characters. But it's very true that cinema gives a very strong impression of realism. But the exteriors don't mean—the exteriors aren't expressed as such. Through the entire film I'm seeking to go inside Hadewijch. Beginning to end the film takes place in Hadewijch's heart, within her passions, within the love that motivates her. So all these landscapes, Paris, they all really are inside her. There's not [unclear] logical, the exterior doesn't interest me as such, it's only a question of how they are around to exteriorize what's going on inside. But the elements that you mentioned are indications to the spectator that something else is going on than mere reality, than mere realism.

Q: By the same token, to pursue a slightly different take, the dialogue between Hadewijch and her young friends, the young friends she makes, that all starts being very true. There's a real—there's a fantastic sense of even typical language, but from French to English there's a real sense of the way teenagers talk to each other, the kind of circular conversations they have that then end in some sort of very blunt question—“Hey, wait a minute, you don't have a…”—“Are you this or”—circling around and then sort of honing in. And I was wondering to the extent that that was precisely noted in the script, or if you would work with Julie and the other actors to try and get a more, we're open to suggestion in terms of getting that kind of tentative adolescent nuance to the dialogue.

BD: (through interpreter) The impressions you get comes from, stems from the fact that there is a lot of improvisation in scenes but nonetheless there are obligations that they have in terms of actors. I don't write out dialogue for them but at the same time I give them precise instructions as to what they have to do. I tell Céline, for example, that nothing but the young boy that she has to flirt with is the focus and within that, I tell Céline that she has to reject his advances. And I let it up to them how to do that. So that gives a very strong impression of hyper-realism within those scenes. And the actors are so surprising that it leads actually to a sense of surrealism. The surrealism that comes from this real improvisation, for example, when a spectator looks at them, saying things, that's why they're doing it, or this is what's happening, but why does he take her arm at that point? It's very complicated. [unclear] the spectator asks questions. This is—it's difficult for the actors too cause it means that they have to act, but this is their work. They are playing their parts.

­

Q: There are two specific themes that are brought up in the film that I thought were very moving and very provocative, that are not necessarily--that are not overtly connected to the action and I wanted to address them separately. The first is the notion that's first brought up by the Mother Superior when she tells Hadewijch/Céline, to go out and seek experience, and saying that her love for Christ or her love for God amounts to a kind of narcissism, which we're not actually—we don't know if that's true or not. But there's a point later on in the picture where Céline is explaining her religious faith and she says, I love Him and He loves me in a very, very definite way. Like as if it is a very true personal relationship. In the United States evangelical religious types always talk about actually their personal relationship with Jesus. I don't know if that's as common a trope or a metaphor in French religious practice or sex, but it's a very common thing among evangelicals. But there is in that whole idea, there is clearly an idea that there's a narcissism working there. And I wondered first of all in terms of your conception of the character, was that the case? And also in terms of your interpretation of the character, what that notion, but in your view, what that notion—how that notion helped motivate parts of your performance, if it was indeed—if you did indeed perceive it that way in the first place.

JS: (through interpreter) The real historical figure of Hadewijch is like that. In her letters she wrote she talks about the fact that Christ would visit her and come to her but not visit the others, so she said perhaps He would come [unclear] to visit the other sisters at another point. But she's very much in that relationship and what she says about Him. So that seems to be an element not of—it's just elsewhere. It's true as then Bruno added a belief of God is one of the highest expressions of self love, selfishness, which is what also the Mother Superior says in the film. She's not a nun in real life. On the contrary, she is a professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne. But she says to Julie that she is too much in love with herself. I think that's true of all believers. The believers are too much in love finally with themselves.

Q: And another theme that is brought up during the Koran study meeting and is noted as being something that is an idea that runs through all religions is God's invisibility, God's refusal to manifest. It's something of course that's been treated in depth by Ingmar Bergman whose films talk about God's silence. And there's a notion arguably at the end of the film when Hadewijch is saved, of God or at least God's love manifesting itself through secular or some form of physical love. But I was wondering, you're in the process of conceiving and making the film, where your own perspectives on the idea of God's refusal and/or inability to manifest asserted themselves.

BD: (through translator) Yes, I think that the only possible manifestation of God's love is through man and every other aspect is invisible. And to me it was very clear that this—I needed Hadewijch to find salvation in this embrace. If I didn't have that embrace at the end of the film, then everything is lost and it wouldn't work. I needed that, as a resolution for the act of terrorism, the explosion. Cause otherwise it would have been totally desperate. If I don't have that hope reach her at the end of the film, then everything else is lost. We need the sense of self-sacrifice in the film. She has to die, she has to [unclear] to be reborn again. She needs this, to kill herself. She dies, she sacrifices herself for us, for the spectators.

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Pretty much off-topic, but I Netflixed Across 110th Street last night. The filmmaking was 20 years ahead of its time, and a direct aesthetic correlation between this and Se7en is obvious. One thing, however -- all of the reviews I read called it "blaxploitation." I don't think it was that at all. To my sense, it was basically an old Phil Karlson B-noir updated to 1972 Harlem -- just a brutal meat-and-potatoes crime film. Needs to be reevaluated.

As for "Across 110th Street," you'll never hear me say anything against it. While not quite as harrowing as Greil Marcus' fevered description of it in "Mystery Train" makes it seem, it's a pretty exceptional piece of work...

Thanks for posting this, Glenn - I had to be vigilant against spoilers, but I'll go back for a more thorough read after I watch the movie. I'm a big booster of Dumont's, although it is true that his work is "problematic" nearly as often as it is brilliant and visionary. For my money, "l'Humanite" is a nearly unqualified masterpiece, 29 Palms a flawed but effective provocation, and Flanders is a kind of repellent but riveting disaster. Bill, I'd recommend giving this new one, as well as his earlier work, a shot or two. There's some real gold in there, especially if you've a taste for serious examinations of God and Good and Evil, however you define those concepts. Dumont is a bit like a stern and idiosyncratic and abrasive and VERY French version of Kubrick (minus any apparent interest in irony or humor), or a much darker and more brooding (although equally receptive to intimations of Grace and/or The Sublime) version of Malick. Fun, but also pretty damn weighty, stuff. Can't wait to see Hadewijch.

Can't read the interview yet as I want to see the film fresh, but I'm pleased to see Glenn's even-handed consideration of Dumont's oeuvre. I felt betrayed by the ending of 29 PALMS and by certain twists in FLANDERS that suggest that this foray into Americanized brutality--either in our desert or ones we aspire to conquer--was an aesthetic and narrative dead end. Maybe this will be like Dumont's STRAIGHT STORY? A one-off that resets his vision so we'll get back to darker fare sans violence porn.

Hmmm...unusual correspondence, CO, though I wonder how much I agree. Maybe if you'd said Loren Mazzacane Conners...

Alors, put this guitarist in the pro-Dumont camp, though I've only seen LA VIE DE JESUS and L'HUMANITE, the latter featuring the single unlikeliest momma's-boy introvert detective in the history of cinema. It's fascinating to read in your interview Dumont's aversion towards realism, since he and the Dardennes do seem to have brought, if not everything, then the kitchen-sink back into Franco-phonic cinematic realism -- and, in BD's case, a couple few salamis, hidden and otherwise. I understand he also despises comparisons of his cinema and Bresson's, but at least in this regard, it strikes me as apt.

I guess, hating on ZABRISKIE as I do, I feared the worst about TWENTY-NINE PALMS (even with Katia Golubeva, sorta the Clara Bow de la nouvelle explicitation), though a few cinephiles I trust have encouraged me to give it a shot. I will, HADEWIJCH also. In danger of being more of a spoiler-sport, I wonder how this plays in contrast to the thematic -- what? ambivalence? -- of the methodically approached terrorist acts in things like DAY NIGHT DAY NIGHT or PARADISE NOW.

i remember having a conversation with a friend during the '09 nyff about this so-called flashback business. he'd made a bet with another colleague about it and, after having spoken to dumont, was pluperfectly delighted to report that indeed, there was no flashback! i think i said something on the order of: "dear god! who could possibly have thought that?" and, since only one name was mentioned, took it to be an isolated case. i'm now rather dismayed to learn from yr piece that it was not isolated at all. this the kind of thing that unfortunately makes me want to sit out the dialog altogether. having to hurdle a stupid debate just to get the good (or at least, "real") one isn't worth it.

TWENTYNINE PALMS is maddening and unfair and, yeah, you could argue it's the work of a guy who doesn't completely know what he's doing, or at the very least is figuring it out as he goes (yes, I know those are two distinct things) and yet...it's stuck with me in ways few films have. I was driving by myself in the desert areas outside Lancaster, CA some time ago for work, and guess which film filled my mind? It reminds me, kind of weirdly, of LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR, which starts out ostensibly as one kind of film before taking a turn. Thankfully, the ending of TWENTYNINE PALMS isn't anywhere as regressive as GOODBAR.

For the record, the heatedness Glenn mentions regarding discussion of the film's ending had less to do with variant interpretations than with the repeated suggestion—typified by eddie's comment above—that anyone who even suggests that what occurs isn't plain as day must be a cretin. I maintain that if Dumont intended the film's conclusion to be unambiguous—which may well be the case—he did a piss-poor job. And to say, as Glenn does here, that Dumont "actually shows what happens on the screen, within its frames, and so on" is simply false. In fact, positing the narrative as wholly realistic and linear requires that one infer a particular event that is (rather curiously in my opinion) *not* depicted onscreen. Nor is it an especially obvious inference to make. If the film had simply ended following the, shall we say in order to avoid spoilers, explosive incident (which would make it a much lesser film, obviously, but never mind that), I doubt there would be any debate whatsoever about the fate of two of the film's characters. What happened to them would seem unmistakable, based on the visual syntax of the sequence in question, and suggestions that something else must have happened which we just don't see would be dismissed as ludicrous. Subsequent events in the actual film clearly make that suggestion considerably less ludicrous, but an inference it remains, one that I personally find more controverted than supported by "what happens on the screen, within its frames, and so on."

That said, I think Glenn is probably right. His point about Céline's visual appearance is well taken, and all but rules out the flashback hypothesis. The fantasy hypothesis intrigued me when I saw the film over a year ago, but I find it less credible now. I'm inclined to attribute all the confusion (and there really was mass confusion at the time of the film's premiere—look up the reviews) to a sort of willful clumsiness on Dumont's part—I think he didn't recognize (or perhaps just didn't care) that his austere, elision-heavy approach, as applied to that sequence and its aftermath, would cause many viewers to leap to an incorrect conclusion and then attempt to interpret subsequent events based on that conclusion. And how easy and even invigorating that would be to do.

Most of all, though, I regret that discussion of this fine film—Dumont's best yet, I think, though I wasn't previously much of a fan—got hijacked by what was always a minor and unimportant issue. I never really had a dog in that hunt, apart from bridling at being called "blind" and whatnot for suggesting that the matter wasn't cut and dried. I might find on second viewing that I preferred the film when its conclusion seemed more mysterious, but it's well worth seeing through any imaginable lens. And Ms. Sokolowski just got one of my Best Actress votes in the Village Voice/L.A. Weekly poll. Now all I have to do is wait for the check for my ballot to arrive...

"It's true as then Bruno added a belief of God is one of the highest expressions of self love, selfishness, which is what also the Mother Superior says in the film. She's not a nun in real life. On the contrary, she is a professor of philosophy at the Sorbonne. But she says to Julie that she is too much in love with herself. I think that's true of all believers. The believers are too much in love finally with themselves."

I think this gets the Mother Superior says more or less backwards. In fact, it was during this scene, near the start of the movie where she tells Celine to leave the convent, when I first told myself "this could be something special." I speak as someone who approached a diocese's vocations director but was eventually turned away, though not for the reason Celine is or anything especially closely related. And I feel comfortable saying that the teller is not to be trusted on the tale's religious themes.

Obviously Julie Sokolowski is perfectly entitled to a belief that belief in God is just selfishness or self-love. But is what she says -- that the Mother Superior characteras who says the lines thinks this -- even remotely plausible? Particularly given what we've seen of Celine to this point? Oh ... "self-love" certainly applies to her, no doubt. But making a generic claim based on her character is absurd, particularly since the charge comes from someone in religious authority.

As I said, this was when HADEWIJCH first got its hooks into me because the actual matters related to vocational discernment usually are not related in contemporary movies and TV, except for sniggering or as spice. Celine had shown an excessive interest in corporal mortification and fasting, confusing abstinence for martyrdom. It's the religious authorities who tell her not to do it (which is both more realistic and contrary to current cliche) as she's too spiritually immature. She defies them -- a big no-no during formation, where docility and obedience are central virtues that need special cultivation (for the very good reason that our current culture considers these habits to be vices). You must diminish so He can increase, as John the Baptist puts it.

That said, I would not exactly say that Celine's tragic flaw has *nothing* to do with narcissism or an excess of self-love, even in apparent abnegation. But it's really something slightly more specifically religious -- an excess of enthousiasmos, of religious grandiloquence. The same vices that lead her ... the bad place she goes.

I was not nearly as bothered by the ending as others have- it seems to me like an attempt to nail down the film to a simpler, neater one, one which is about extreme fundamentalism. Even if it serves just that purpose -to offer a different talking point to the sensationalistic subway scene- I like the ending. But also as an alternate ending, it's fascinating.
The ending aside, I was exhilirated by the film. For a film pegged as 'provocation'- whether for its content or structure- I found it very thoughtful, somber and serious. It takes Celine's faith seriously, even if it stands aghast at what transpires (I was sold on the film with the first scene of her praying in her room, where Dumont illustrates just how powerfully felt her prayers are).

@ S. Porath, not to speak for the rigorous Mr. Morton, but I believe he's taking exception to your characterization of the film as saying something about "fundamentalism." I understand his point; when you're dealing with subject matter of this sort, precision of language is important, and it's true that fundamentalism and religious extremism of the sort that leads to terrorist acts aren't mutually exclusive, and that the film really does not draw such lines. My own invocation of fundamentalism in the interview, when I mentioned the notion of a "personal relationship" with Christ, was slightly off-the-cuff, and that, too might have been a not-quite-accurate connection. Where I differ with Victor here is in the implication—which please do correct me if it's not that—that fundamentalist practice or mindset cannot manifest within Catholicism or Islam. Opus Dei is arguably a fundamentalist sect of Catholicism, for instance. But that's got little if anything to do with what's going on in the film.

@mike: "...I never really had a dog in that hunt, apart from bridling at being called "blind" and whatnot for suggesting that the matter wasn't cut and dried."

Granted, I haven't seen Hadewijch so didn't read Glenn's post or most of your comment. But I skimmed it, and the excerpt above called to mind your scenic routes in the AV Club on Headless Woman a while back... That's exactly how I felt reading you on whether Veronica hit the dog or the boy. Just sayin'...

I have no problem at all with what you said in the Dumont interview because you used the term "evangelicals" and what you said is both true and grabbed me about HADEWIJCH.

Evangelicals (who are not the same as "fundamentalists") do tend to be much freer and easier than other Christians in using the language of personal love and friendship in describing their relationship with Christ. The real-life Hadewijch was a Catholic mystic and Celine fancies herself that way, and while they also tend more in that direction, they're still a bit of a queer duck. So yes, it is a little jarring to hear that kind of talk coming from Celine. (Indeed, and I apologize in advance if this comes across patronizing, I was impressed that a not-especially-religious journalist/critic made the connection and used the terms correctly.) One other detail about Celine that struck me as more like American evangelicals than devout European Catholics is her fascination with (what I take to be) hipster music and concerts.

As for "fundamentalism," if it is being used with any specificity and respect for history at all, it only applies to some Protestants (and Pat Robertson and Jim Bakker are not among them). Even as a tendency (it's never been a denomination per se), it addresses issues of Biblical authority that can only arise or have bite in a sola-scriptura background. Any other use is analogic at best, has never been self-applied (many protestants who rallied around "The Fundamentals" did this), and is little more than a journalistic-convention-cum-cussword. Lest I be accused of being a homer, its use in the context of Islam and (Vishnu forbid) Hinduism irks me more than promiscuous misapplication to Christians.

Donald:

Thank you!! I was trying to remember what film it was where Mike took great sport in calling others blind or bad critics or whatever for thinking there was something ambiguous in a scene he thought perfectly straightforward.

(FTR ... this all started in my Twitter conversations with Mike where I said it was perfectly clear to me that HADEWIJCH was a straightforward narrative and expressed credulity that people thought the last scenes were some sort of rupture that needed explanation.)

Victor, you're welcome... So when you say "...this all started" - are you referring only to the "debate" about ambiguity in ending of Hadjewich? Or, was Mike's piece on Headless Woman spurred by said debate about Hadjewich's ending?
To be fair, I think Mike, in his AV Club piece, was specifically calling out critics who [SPOILERS, MAYBE?] assume that the woman actually hit the boy and not the dog. I'll admit to not being the biggest fan of his work in general - and then just go ahead and say that he made his case that she clearly hit the dog and not the boy in a rather strident way.
To put this (that is, the Headless woman) to bed, my whole take was that neither extreme is "correct" and that there's a lot of ambiguity that Mike and the critics he calls out are missing. In what's in the frame and out, in the sound design, in the ellipses that Martel so masterfully employs.

I must agree with Miie though that it pretty clearly IS a dog in the Martel film and nothing in the film *requires* that the heroine hit a child and so given that she doesn't show a dead child but does show a dead dog ... Though the real relevance here is that Mike argues above from a critical vox populi that if HADEWIJCH was meant to be a straight-through narrative, which he didn't right away get, then Dumont effed it up. But the exact same result re HEADLESS WOMAN -- widespread crix misunderstanding and attempts at elaborate explanations predicated therein -- only he's on the other side. Well, Martel couldn't have effed THAT up -- gotta be crix failure.

Apropos nothing at all, I tweeter that I was about to go into HEADLESS WOMAN and Mike responded (quoting from memory) "BTW bud, you will hate this film." He was right.

And yet somehow so many people were confused ... I'm inclined to attribute all the confusion (and there really was mass confusion at the time — look up the reviews) to a sort of willful clumsiness on Martel's part — I think she didn't recognize (or perhaps just didn't care) that her austere, elision-heavy approach, as applied to that sequence and its aftermath, would cause many viewers to leap to an incorrect conclusion and then attempt to interpret subsequent events based on that conclusion. And how easy and even invigorating that would be to do.

Cute, Victor, but they're just not comparable. In fact Martel provides *exactly* the clarifying shot that Dumont for some reason chose to omit. And that shot has no other function than to ensure that we, the audience, know exactly what happened. That people still thought they saw something else, or are inventing alternate scenarios based on alleged clues (which, as I pointed out in the piece I wrote, generally make no sense whatsoever), is not Martel's fault.

Whereas all Dumont needed to do was show two people getting off a train.

I haven't seen HADEWIJCH, but I'm remembering almost identical exchanges when L'HUMANITE came out a little over ten years ago. And around the same time, there were similar conversations about FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI. A few years later, the exercise was repeated with THE INTRUDER. Then again with TROPICAL MALADY. And CACHE.

Whenever situations like this arise, three questions usually come up: what exactly happened, what was the point of rendering it elliptically, and was it worth it?

As usual, Kent cuts to the chase like few can... To Mike, I'd just say that it's not a question of whether Vero hit the dog (I think that's a closed case). Rather, Martel has created the possibility that she also hit the boy. It's also possible that she just hit the dog. The last thing I'd do with a film like this would be to excise the scene in question and ask people to look at it "objectively" and judge what they've seen or heard without any context for the scene or insight into the director's methods.
The Headless Woman is about many things, but it seems to me this is one of the most important: to think about what's presented - both on the screen but in life, what we see before us but also what we can't see (whether off-screen or behind us, etc.) - and how we process that uncertainty.

Well, Donald, I respectfully disagree, and already wrote a entire piece explaining why. I'm convinced the shot in question exists precisely to rule out that possibility, and I just don't buy the "she hit the kid too but for some reason unlike the dog who's right in the middle of the road the kid went flying into the culvert and is not visible to us" thesis. You are correct, though, that context is important (though getting too deep into that would have been inappropriate for the particular feature I write for the A.V. Club). One of the many reasons I feel confident Martel is showing us Véro didn't hit the boy is that the film is many many times more interesting and pointed if she didn't.

I haven't seen THE HEADLESS WOMAN in a while, but while I remember the accident exactly as Mr. D'Angelo describes it (and, as it is in the clip he provides), a lot of the force of the movie came, I think, from the efforts of people around her to erase any record of her presence near or relating to the accident. I suppose that whether or not she killed a child is irrelevant, but it is pretty important that she THINKS she's killed a child, no? And that a child has been killed at the same spot, as they find out later - correct?

There are a lot of movies that leave their key narrative events off screen, and the strategy is usually meant to force the audience to search for clues and, as they're looking and listening, to develop a heightened awareness of something else - in this case, the particulars of middle class existence, revealed in furtive behaviors, strange patnologies, sensual details. All 3 Martel films are extremely dense, this one in particular. No critical "huffing and puffing" involved. Just an effort to put togeher the accident with the movie that follows. Without the benefit of a DVD and only one or even two viewings behind you, not easy.

I've only seen The Headless Woman once - two years ago now? And yet, I think it might be an overstatement to say she thinks she's killed the child. It's a very strange sort of somnambulent hysteria from which she occasionally approaches lucidity before sinking (or being pushed) back into the miasma.

I of course am not the first to point out the resonance of horrible things happening "off screen" in Argentina with its Dirty War and the disappeared. I think the association is subtle, like everything in this film, part of the web of suggestive menace and atmosphere that makes it so so difficult to pin this film down. I agree with you, Kent, that ultimately it's not so important to the story whether she killed the child or not - but I bristle at Mike's suggestion that a definitive position on the question, however conclusive it may be in the scene, somehow makes it a richer experience of the film. It seems tantamount to nailing a cobweb to the wall to make sure it sticks...

Anyway, thanks for weighing in Kent. Your comments in general here are eye opening and much appreciated.